« Freudianism as a gnostic religion


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Preface

Prologue to a consideration of Freud, Freud, and Freudianism

I. FREUDIANISM

The theory of the Oedipus complex

Sophocles and Oedipus

The hydraulic metaphor

An alternative theory of hysteria

An exemplary analysis

Prologue to an evaluation of Freud as a scientist

The theory of dreams as wish-fulfillments

The theory that gaps in memory symbolize female genitalia

A complete statement of Freud’s system

Fromm on Freud

Miller off Freud

II. WHAT FREUD DID

Prologue to a brief intellectual biography of Sigmund Freud

The Theory of Everything

A life of Freud’s mind

A jaundiced portrait of Freud

Freud’s friendship with Wilhelm Fliess

Freud, Fliess, Eckstein, Masson, Balmary, Krüll

The saga of Horace Frink

III. WHAT FREUD BELIEVED

Prologue to a consideration of Sigmund Freud as a theorist

The theory of the castration complex

The theory of phylogenetic memory

The theory of the death drive

The theory of the tripartite mind

The theory of the primal crime

The theory of the acquisition of fire

The theory of the primitive form of sexual longing

The theory of the primary addiction

The theory of the transformation of anal erotic drives

The theory of the derivation of verbs from coproerotic terms

The theory of ontogenetic libidinal recapitulation of phylogenetic postural changes

The theory of neurotic “choice”

The theory of ontogenetic libidinal recapitulation of phylogenetic views of the universe

The theory of ontogenetic neurotic recapitulation of phylogenetic catastrophes

The theory of joking

The theory of Freudian slips

The theory of anxiety

The theory of shell-shock

The theory of paranoia

The theory of headaches

The theory that all psychical processes can be represented as quantitatively determinate states of specifiable material particles

Epitaph for Freud as a theorist

IV. WHY FREUD BELIEVED IT

Prologue to a psychological biography of Sigmund Freud

Freud on love

Freud on women

Freud on morality

Freud and Luther

The stylistic mask is the man

The personal is the theoretical

V. WHY WE BELIEVED FREUD

Prologue to a spiritual biography of Sigmund Freud

A bare nothing

The search for meaning

The psychological benefits of religion

Is psychoanalysis merely a pseudoscience?

Is psychoanalysis merely a humanist hermeneutics?

Psychoanalysis as religion

What Freud actually achieved

VI. WHAT FREUDIANS BELIEVE TODAY

By their fruits you shall know them

Character assassination by experts

Intellectual dishonesty

The ethics of belief

Dora today

Freud at The New York Times

Epilogue

ADDITIONAL MATTER

Appendix A: A paper in full

Appendix B: A representative case of misrepresentation

Appendix C: The grammar of Freudianism

Appendix D: Notes on the “recovered memory” controversy

Appendix E: “Psychoanalysis is the malady that considers itself the remedy”

Bibliography


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About Stephen Kennamer

For several years I have taught a course titled The Anthropology of Evil. I chose the term “anthropology,” not to indicate a restriction to the study of evil among primitive tribes, but rather to widen the lens to take in every relevant discipline: history, philosophy, theology, psychology, sociology, and current events.

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